The former Crawley Town manager John Yems has been banned from all football-related activity for three years for 12 breaches of anti-discrimination rules. The increase to his original 17-month suspension amounts to “the longest ever ban issued to a participant in English football for discrimination”, the Football Association said.
Yems was initially banned by an independent regulatory commission until 1 June 2024 but the FA appealed that the sanction was too lenient. It also opposed the commission’s finding that the 63-year-old is “not a conscious racist”. An independent appeal board agreed with the FA, expressing incredulity at the commission’s assessment, and extended Yems’ ban until 5 January 2026.
